Wanderers Women and Schoolgirls Shine at Wellington Maori Cricket Festival
The Wanderers pulled together a Wanderers Women’s XI and a Wanderer’s Schoolgirls XI yesterday to play in two matches against the Te-Whanganui-a-Tara Māori Wahine and the Te-Whanganui-a-Tara Schoolgirls XI at the first ever Wellington Maori Cricket festival.
After a welcoming powhiri, the teams were treated to hot cross buns on Waiwhetu Marae while we waited for the grass to dry and patchy rain to clear.
The Women’s game was unfortunately reduced to a 10 over match. The Wanderers posted a tidy 83/10 in their 10 overs but lost to the Wahine in the last over who posted 85/3 after some impressive hitting from Nicole Baird and Caitlin King - both of Blaze fame. It has to be said our young bowlers stood up to the challenge of such a high calibre opposition and loss notwithstanding can hold their heads high!
The rain cleared in the afternoon for the schoolgirls T20 - with the biggest challenge for all players being trying to play on overly full stomachs after we had been provided with a massive hangi lunch!
This time it was the Wanderer’s schoolgirls who took the win, scoring 144/4 against the Māori schoolgirls 127/5. Lily Campbell - from the Wanderers Young Cricketers Programme setting the team up with a solid 60 runs not out.
It was absolutely fabulous to have not only Lily playing for us, but also 5 out of 7 of our girls Academy players were there - including Ash Manks who couldn’t play because of a knee injury but was there supporting the team for the entire game.
A great day was had by all!
